Move to strike gay sex records

LEGISLATION to erase the convictions of men who were prosecuted for consensual gay sex before the law was changed in 1981 is being considered by the state government.

Disclosure of the old convictions could result in the men being prevented from applying for some jobs and taking on volunteering roles.

Advocates have been calling for Victoria to enact ''spent conviction'' legislation that expressly purges the convictions, saying the reform is urgently needed to prevent people from paying the price for crimes that no longer exist.

Sex between men stopped being a crime in Australian states between 1975 and 1997, with Victoria decriminalising gay sex in 1981.

The records can prevent men from applying for jobs that need police checks and taking volunteering roles and may cause prolonged mental suffering, advocates say.

Britain this year passed laws to allow thousands of men with convictions for consensual sexual activity to apply to have their records cleared.

After he learnt of the British move, Prahran MP Clem Newton-Brown approached Attorney-General Robert Clark to see in Victoria could implement the same sort of reform.

A spokesman for Mr Clark said he had asked Mr Newton-Brown to prepare a proposal ''having regard to approaches adopted in the UK and in other jurisdictions''.

Dr Paula Gerber, a Monash human rights law academic, said she was shocked to find that there was no such legislation in Australia.

''I was embarrassed to find this was still going on in my country, which I like to think of as a largely rights-respecting nation, especially when it comes to things like the gay community,'' she said.

The Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby and Liberty Victoria are calling for legislation that deals with the removal of convictions for consensual sexual activity between men.

Every Australian jurisdiction except Victoria has ''spent convictions'' legislation, which means a person has the right not to disclose certain convictions for minor criminal offences that occurred more than a decade ago.

Dr Gerber said such legislation provided that convictions for sexual offences could never become spent, so a conviction arising from homosexual conduct in the 1970s would still appear on a police record check.

In one case, a New South Wales man has stayed in the same job for 25 years, fearing an application for a new job may result in a prospective employer finding out about an old conviction for indecent assault that he received in 1981, for engaging in consensual sex with another man.

About five years ago, the man applied to see his criminal record and was shocked and hurt to learn the conviction was still there. The conviction is stopping him from doing volunteer work.

Anna Brown, of the Human Rights Law Centre, said Victoria needed to lead the way. ''There is no mechanism to expunge gay sex convictions, and what we would like to see happen is for states like Victoria to adopt the approach taken in Britain,'' she said.

Jamie Gardiner, the vice-president of Liberty Victoria, who spearheaded the 1970s homosexual law reform campaign, said the stigma of a criminal conviction was ''doubly painful when it is the law, not the deed, which was wrong''.

''The convictions for these so-called offences are different from convictions for real crimes that just happen to be old and considered spent. Convictions of gay men under the now-repealed laws were convictions under unjust laws.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/national/move-to-strike-gay-sex-records-20121216-2bhm4.html